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At the Foundation, we want to drive innovation in education and technology. How we get there is not such a simple statement. We work in removing barriers (internet that is too expensive, IP regimes that are too restrictive), accelerating great ideas (the Freedom Toaster, Open licences, OER’s), and investing in clever people (our fellows and friends).
The most important thing we do, however, is share. Our monthly reports are now blogged rather than circulated to a small internal audience, we are creating a ‘How we work’ series, sharing what we do and why, where we have struggled, where we have succeeded and where we are winning. We are not there yet, but we are trying.
There have been many times when I have thought it would be wonderful if John Thole from Edunova (who works directly with schools) could meet Palesa, Rina and Selaelo from the DoE as they have to much to share. So yesterday, we tried something new (not new to the world, but new to us). We asked lots of people that we are working with, from all projects and sectors, to come to lunch, meet, talk and listen.
We got people standing, chatting, presenting, searching for their counter-parts who had the same coloured dots (come to the next one for an explanation!) and it was magical. People working on producing educational resources were forging new ideas with others working in telecommunications infrastructure about how to delivery them. Freedom Toasters in schools as a ‘Teachers Toolbox’s’, benchmarking the ICT readiness of Universities across the region, using the LPI to help FOSS policy turn to practice in government were some of the ideas discussed.
The really exciting thing: the people who are needed to make it happen were the ones talking to each other!
We will put up a wiki to discuss how we can keep this going. What we should call it (Eugene suggested FaceFace instead of Facebook!), how the format can be improved etc… The main thing is, we all gained from not thinking in our silos and reaching out across the sector. Knowing that you are not working alone, even if you tackle the problem in a different way, can be very comforting and energising. Thanks to all who attended and we really look forward to seeing you all again soon!
I feel like it is a David and Goliath month this month.
Technology trends shows that the digital divide between rich and poor countries is growing. While developed countries are expected to reach a broadband penetration rate of 28% in 2008, the corresponding rate for developing countries is just 3%. That is the reason why I am so excited about the Village Telco project that Steve is currently working on.
Also, Alexander Ponosov, the Russian schoolteacher who was put on trail for using Microsoft’s products illegally, even though they were pre-installed when the school bought them, has launched a campaign against.
We are helping to rally against the adoption of the OOXML standard and are imensley proud of South Africa and especially Geraldine FRASER-MOLEKETI for ensuring that Open Standards prevail.
The road to ‘open’ is a long one, but we are getting there.
What we do in this area:
“Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) were originally instituted to encourage the creation and invention of public goods for the benefit of society by allowing creators and inventors to protect their intellectual property. However, IPR has become overly restrictive in recent times as corporate interests have led to an ever increasing demand for lock-down on rights.
The Shuttleworth Foundation supports initiatives that call for the establishment of national and global IPR regimes that seek an appropriate balance between encouraging innovation and benefiting society, the original purpose of creating the rights.”
This month’s highlights:
In a courageous and hugely impressive move, the Minister for the Public Service and Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi set the Minimum Interoperability Standards for Information Systems (MIOS) in government, which will mean a move to Open Source Software. We believe that the implementation of this standard will greatly enhance interoperability and document management.
We are actively campaigning against Microsoft’s proposed OOXML standard and believe that the ODF, being a current and working standard needs to be maintained. ODF essentially means that no matter what document writing software you use, the actual content will not be lost over time by interoperability issues. South Africa voted in opposition to the proposed standard in September, and we are now in an appeal process.
We enabled Nnenna Nwakanma from FOSSFA to attend the ISO ballot resolution meeting on OOXML in Geneva as part of the CODINORM, the Standards Board of Cote d’Ivoire, delegation. She has been fantastic in helping us understand the African debate and see where the pressure points with other African nations are. Nnenna’s preliminary feedback has been that the meeting did not cover nearly all of the discussion points on the table and that there is a great deal to be done in sharing information between vote-entitled African countries in the 30 days before the final vote is due. She is leading a group discussion and initiatives on this.
Andrew Rens participated in an interview debate for Brainstorm Magazine with Microsoft representative David Ives on OOXML and open standards. The interview will be published in the April edition of Brainstorm.
What we do in this area:
“Teachers, learners and authors around the world are increasingly seeing the potential of open educational resources. As part of a broader movement to open up education, these resources can increase access to learning opportunities and encourage more collaborative, student-centric learning. The Shuttleworth Foundation works closely with the innovators and activists who are bringing this movement to life.”
This month’s highlights:
Mark Horner’s (Siyavula Project Manager) proposal for a presentation on Open and Collaborative Resources has been accepted for eLearning Africa. He will be presenting at the event in Ghana in May. The excerpt is not on the website yet, but will be shortly. He will be specifically talking about the project, what we have learnt so far and how Open Educational Resources (OER’s) are used in South Africa.
Mark Horner met with representatives of Indigo+ng from South Korea and is invited to attend their annual working session in South Korea in September. At this event they bring together 6 projects from across the world who have succeeded in inspiring, engaging and mobilising the youth in education. Indigo+ng is an organisation focused on youth development towards critical engagement and embracing education and learning. They travelled to South Africa specifically to meet with Mark based on his work on the Free High School Science Texts (FHSST) and Siyavula.
FHSST has received good feedback from tutoring initiatives finding their materials online and using them in their outreach programmes. It is clear that there is a huge need for OER’s that can be accessed and redistributed freely in a decentralised manner. Many students still have not received their text books, even though the 1st term is almost over. The viral adoption of the materials is encouraging for both the FHSST and Siyavula initiatives.
Press related to the Cape Town Open Education Declaration has lead to a large influx of enquiries, proposals and offers of support for our OCR initiatives. It’s encouraging and enlightening to engage with so many individuals and organisations who are in desperate need of educational resources or who have resources to offer. Whilst most of the offers of resources have been with profit motives in mind, it allows us to have the open licensing and open resources conversation with a much wider audience, potentially increasing our impact in this area.
The Shuttleworth Foundation’s mission is to drive innovation in education and technology. Philosophically, we do that by: accelerating great ideas and removing barriers. Practically that means we pilot projects and pedagogies, and back excellent people to drive help drive our agenda.
The way we do business, entertain and educate has changed due to the communication afforded through technology. Shouldn’t everyone, including those that have the least (and hence the most to gain) be able to benefit?
Open is a very important word to us at the Foundation. Open source, open standards, open licenses, open access. Ultimately all of these things allow the developing world to participate in the wonderful knowledge economy that has transformed the worlds of those with access.
Currently we are focused on: telecommunications (everyone must have access to be able to participate), intellectual property (everyone must be able to participate legally and freely), open and collaborative educational resources (learners need to have access on their terms, and in their context) and communication and analytical skills (new skills that are needed to be able to participate meaningfully).
We believe that innovation happens within these areas quicker and more efficiently if we share. Regularly, those that are at our offices in Cape Town have lunch together to discuss an article, watch a TED talk (a recent and welcome addition), review books and ideas in these areas. We also use this time to debrief and solicit ideas from the team about particular issues. One such lunchtime concentrated on the first in a series of papers we are going to release about how we work. We will be highlighting our successful (and not so successful) processes and practises and inviting you to learn and help us learn in the process.
Out of that meeting, we began to focus on how we report on the activities within the Foundation. We report on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis (to internal stakeholders, trustees, and publicly, respectively). This involves a lot of thought about what has happened and some thought on what we have learnt from it – but not enough and not shared widely enough for anyone else to benefit.
With this in mind, I am going to start blogging the monthly reports. These reports are made up from all within the Foundation and is simply re-purposed to ensure they are readable. We hope you enjoy!
